We talked recently about managerial communications, looking at the various ways you as a manager can deliver your message and the organization's messages to your team. There's more to talk about there, but we're going to tackle a different type of communication this time.

Mark's core skill is coaching managers and executives on their effectiveness. These efforts take many different forms, because different managers have different strengths and weaknesses. Some managers barely speak to their teams, are not personable, and are perceived (rightly) as not caring about their direct reports. They wonder why they can't seem to get anything done.

In this show, we're going to talk about the simplest, most elegant tool we know of to make something you do at work more efficient and more effective.

Once we explain it, you'll get it, and you'll be able to do it. It blows away two of our favorite tool criteria, effectiveness and efficiency. It works; that is, you'll get notable change out of this tool. So that makes it effective. And, it's terribly fast, without ANY fanfare or paperwork or staffing, so that makes it efficient as well. We like ANYTHING that is both effective and efficient.

The tool's nickname is "The Hot Wash". Its more formal name is Running an After Action Session.

Today, we continue our conversation on "Managing Your Boss" or, better yet, "Creating a Good Relationship with Your Boss". Last week we discussed Boss Goals and Boss Communications; today we cover Boss Schedule/Time Management, Boss Work Style, and Boss Relationships.

Managing Upwards for the most part boils down to Creating a Good Relationship with Your Boss. "Managing Your Boss" is somewhat of a misnomer in our world view; tell your boss that you're managing them and see what kind of look you get. :-)

There is a lot to be said about politics in organizations, and whom you should know and whom you should stay in touch with. We've found that those topics don't lend themselves easily to a simple cast if we want to give you actionable guidance. That IS what we're about, after all.

This week we recur to a theme we started a while ago, management communications. If you don't remember, we won't be surprised - it was September, and we barely scratched the surface of presenting with PowerPoint.